Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Talkin' Turkey, Tunes and Liver-Damaging Shows

Thanksgiving weekend is when everyone comes home for the holidays — and after a day spent with the family, many of the homecomers want to go out, hang out with friends and see a band they used to go hear back in the day. That’s why so many local bands book special shows, including reunion shows, this time of year. Here are some of the shows you can check out in the next four days.

Tonight, self-dubbed “Host of the North Coast” Peanuts, who has written for numerous local publications over the past four decades, hosts his annual Thanksgiving Eve Peanuts All-Star Jam. It’s usually a big classic-rocker fest, with a host band and whatever guest performers/bands show up. It’s at the Hi-Fi Club.

A more recent tradition is the JiMiller Band’s annual Thanksgiving Eve all-Grateful Dead show, now in its 6th year. The band will be recording the show for a CD release. It’s at the Winchester November 25.

Jam-band fans on the east side can check out the Waterband’s Psychedelic Carnival, with special guests Dizzy Doc and Fran the Musician at the Beachland Ballroom.

Also at the Beachland, vintage/collectible store This Way Out, housed in the Beachland basement, hosts its fourth anniversary show in the Tavern. Founding Fathers, the Alarm Clocks, Prisoners and the Dreadful Yawns play starting at 9 p.m.; arrive between 7 and 9 p.m. and get some free appetizers.

Tomorrow night you can bail on the family and head down to Pats in the Flats, where indie-rock bands Coffinberry, Buried Wires, Wooly Bullies, Tinko will play a show.

Friday’s a huge night for local music. Eternal Legacy, the new standard-bearers for Cleveland metal label Auburn, will be releasing their CD Lifeless Alive at Peabody’s. The show is free and also features Lower 13, Law of Destruction, Ground Zero and Lick the Blade.

Also releasing a new CD that night is Kent’s venerable Numbers Band (15-60-75), which has been playing around the area for almost 40 years. But Inward City is the band’s first real studio album; they’ll debut it at the Kent Stage.

First Light, who ruled the Cleveland music scene for 14 years with their rockin’ reggae hybrid, play a pair of reunion shows at the Grog Shop, two blocks from where they formed in 1984. Friday’s and Saturday’s sets will feature completely different song lists, drawn from the band’s extensive repertoire of originals and distinctively reworked covers.

Hippies who didn’t get their jamming-out fill Wednesday can catch an evening with Columbus’ perennially popular Ekoostik Hookah at the Beachland. It’s a final opportunity to catch them with bassist/founding member Cliff Starbuck, who is departing amicably after their New Year’s Eve show.

Those who hung out in Cleveland’s hair-metal scene in its ’90s waning days undoubtedly remember the super-glammy Priscilla and their big hair, big attitude and big, big promotion. They’ll be reprising old favorites like their single “Wake Up the Neighborhood” and newer material they never got to record at the Hi-Fi Club on Friday.

On Saturday, the Schwartz Brothers Band, featuring Robert Lockwood Jr.’s longtime bassist Gene Schwartz and his brother Glenn, who’s become as famous for his, um, interesting, preaching as for his guitar playing, do their first date since early this year at the Beachland Tavern. —Anastasia Pantsios